Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 3.004
May 18, 1993

1) Buyze vyetchera (David Sherman)
2) Buyze vyetchera (Harriet Ottenheimer)
3) Buyze vyetchera (Yitzhak Kertesz)
4) Transcription and transliteration (Arn Abramson)
5) Menachem Mendl, the scoop (Pierre Lewis)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 17 11:41:31 1993
From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.ca (David Sherman)
Subject: Buyze vyetchera

Dunno about "byuse" (how are you pronouncing that?),
but vyetchere is the word we use for "dinner".

David Sherman

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 17 14:56:06 1993
From: Harriet Ottenheimer <MAHAFAN@KSUVM.BITNET>
Subject: Buyze vyetchera

It's been a long time since my college Russian classes
but isn't vyetchera the Russian word for "night" or
"evening?"  I also remember the word from the song that
was popular back then, "Pod Moskovniya Vyetchera"
(Moscow Nights??).  If so, then the next question, and
the one which I can't contribute to, is what meaning it
took on in Yiddish. . .

Harriet Ottenheimer

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 17 15:05:34 1993
From: "Yitzhak Kertesz" <BM.LBH%RLG.bitnet>
Subject: supperlatif (re: buyze vyetchera)

According to Weinreich, supper = vyetchera. Isn't their
Ma'ariv service (as we say in Turkish lehavdil) called
"vyetchernye (sp?)"? I seem to remember that a Russian
opera (Boris Godunov?) has such a scene.

As for buyze, can it be a variant of German "boese"?

Yitzhak Kertesz

4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon May 17 23:05:26 1993
From: "Arthur S. Abramson" <ABRAMSON%UCONNVM.bitnet>
Subject: Transcription and transliteration

I would like to remind our friend Meylekh that the Yivo
Yiddish orthography is a broad transcription of the
sounds of a variety of Yiddish speech. A transliteration
is a direct transposition, letter by letter, from one
alphabet to another. Thus his name transliterated into
roman letters from the original Hebrew would be mlk,
whereas a transcrription of a modern Hebrew pronuncia-
tion of that name might be /'melekh/; the spelling
actually used by him, Meylekh, is a transcription of a
Yiddish pronunciation of that name. The virtue of a
transliteration for certain purposes is that, with a
table of equivalents in hand, you can recover the form
in the script of the other language.

As to Meylekh's request for an opinion on writing
"Yiddish" rather than the standard spelling "Yidish" in
Yivo orthography, I can only say as a cranky linguist,
and even crankier phonetician, that I vote for
consistency in our transcriptions. Let each spelling
have its own place.

Arn (=Hebrew Aha'ron) (English name Arthur) Abramson

5)----------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue May 18 11:20:37 1993
From: "Pierre (P.) Lewis" <lew@bnr.ca>
Subject:  Menachem Mendl, the scoop

Finally got the story straight.  The Yiddish theater
will be presenting the world premiere of the musical
"The Adventures of Menachem Mendl".  Lyrics by Sara
Rosenfeld, melodies by Eli Rubinstein.  Based of course
on the correspondence by Sholem Aleykhem.

The musical will be presented for most of June.  Box
office if anyone is interested: (514) 739-7944. Saidye
Bronfmann Centre general no: (514) 739-2301.

BTW, Dora Wasserman, the founding director of the
Yiddish Theater here, has been accorded the highest of
Canadian honours -- the appointment to the Order of
Canada.

Pierre Lewis

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End of Mendele Vol. 3.004